


True Love, I Know I Had It

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/F, happy valentine's day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 18:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: Evie tried to catch a boyfriend in her time at Auradon, of course she did. It should have been simple, right? She was beautiful, and charming, and regal, the perfect match for a prince. But instead, she wound up with no one, just herself and a broken heart; no prince, no boyfriend, no one to share in her happily ever after. So then...where exactly did all these Valentine's Day gifts come from?





	True Love, I Know I Had It

“Evie? Are you okay?”   
  
Carlos asked the question, almost positive he wouldn’t get an answer but daring to ask anyway. Anything that would garner him a chance to erase the blank, despondent expression that had plagued Evie’s otherwise flawless features the entire day. And indeed it was the entire day, as from breakfast ten hours ago to dinner now and every passing in the hallway in between, Evie had been stuck with the same furrowed frown, the same faraway gaze.  
  
“I’m fine,” she said dully, picking at the sandwich on her plate.  
  
No, she was not fine.  
  
In less than six hours the clock would strike twelve, heralding the arrival and the beginning of Valentine’s Day. There was no such thing as Valentine’s Day on the Isle of the Lost, but Evie and her friends had learned and been told all about it in the months since coming to Auradon. Evie imagined her eyes were literally sparkling when she first heard about it from Jane, who’d fretted months before over the possibility that her mother might plan a Valentine’s Day dance and stuff Jane’s already packed schedule full to the brim. Evie had met her with several lost blinks, and Jane in return met her with a stunned but not altogether shocked “…You don’t know about Valentine’s Day?”  
  
And then Evie’s lost eyes danced, danced and glittered as Jane talked of flowers, and chocolates, candy and jewelry and oversized stuffed animals. It was Evie’s dream come true, a day specially meant for a prince (or two, or maybe even three) to shower her with affection and dazzling gifts, tokens of their love and admiration for the fairest of them all.  
  
But in less than six hours the clock would strike twelve, and Evie did not have one prince, or two, or maybe even three.  
  
She had zero. 

The fairest of them all, unable to catch a boyfriend? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been trying, of course she had—her mother had insisted on it before Evie left The Isle. She’d used everything in her hand-sewn bag of tricks; batting her smokey eyes, laughing her tinkling laugh. The flirty smiles, the fashionable styles, the tantalizing rasp of her almost siren-like voice. From Ben to Chad to even Doug she’d tried, tried to be the to-die-for girlfriend and princess that any boy would covet. And she’d failed. Miserably.  
  
“E?”  
  
This time it was Mal making the inquiries, Mal sitting beside her at the table silently questioning why she’d barely touched her food and stayed quiet as a mouse all day long.  
  
“…I’m not very hungry,” Evie announced to her friends, standing up and shoving her plate away towards the greedy eyes of Jay, almost done with his own meal and aiming for seconds.  
  
“Where are you going?” Mal wondered, head tilting back to look up at Evie as she gathered her purse.  
  
“The dorm room. I’ll see you later, Mal. Goodnight, boys.”  
  
Evie gave her curt farewells to all three of them, and then was gone. With everyone still at dinner Evie’s only company was her own soft footfalls down the carpeted corridors and eventually the floor of her room. The click of the door behind her was followed by a click of the light switch, and then, followed by the softest of sniffs. Evie’s eyes again sparkled over the thought of Valentine’s Day, but alone in the dorm room, they sparkled with tears. She didn’t break her stride as she lobbed her purse onto her bed and moved to stand before the floor-length mirror. Evie took a good look at herself there, watching her eyes start to redden, her cheeks and nose too.  
  
She just wasn’t beautiful enough. That had to be it. A lifetime of her mom’s makeup tutorials and style lessons, and still Evie wasn’t beautiful enough, inside or out. Why else would no boy want her, why else weren’t the princes scrambling to her side? All this time, Evie believed herself to be the fairest of them all, and now, on the advent of the day to celebrate it, she was finding that she was merely…fair. Audrey would have someone tomorrow. Jane would too. Even Lonnie, with a sword in one hand and a mean right hook in the other, had not inadvertently scared romance away from her.  
  
Evie so badly wanted the flowers, so badly wanted the candy. She wanted a show of her status, a show of her beauty, the whole school to envy her charm and perfection, the princess from the wrong side of the bridge who ended up outshining them all. Instead she outshone no one, fighting back tears as she morosely shrugged into her pajamas and crawled into bed at such an early hour of the evening. Her head hit the pillow and her thoughts raced within, wondering how, just  _how_ she couldn’t have been good enough for a boyfriend,  _why_ no one had wanted her when she was everything that should be wanted.  
  
She didn’t have an answer. All she had was a night of tumultuous sleep waiting, and a very, very long day ahead of her tomorrow.

* * *

Mal’s alarm clock woke them both the next morning, and as Evie stirred she was more than disheartened to find the same black rain cloud hanging over her head all day yesterday had churned violently overnight and nearly doubled in size. Mal caught sight of her best friend’s dragging movements (Evie? Dragging??) and worried right away, but remembered dinner the evening before and felt more than sure she wouldn’t get an explanation out of her. But the strange behavior became too much for Mal to take when Evie’s morning routine didn’t include her typical twirl in front of the mirror and beaming smile followed by a “How do I look?”  
  
“Aren’t you going to ask me how you look?” Mal questioned, slipping her leather jacket on and moving to zip up her school bag.  
  
Evie didn’t see the point in asking how she looked. She just shrugged off Mal’s words by mustering a halfhearted laugh, making sure she had everything she needed for the school day too.  
  
“Walk me to class?” Evie gently prodded.  
  
“Always do,” Mal said, gaze lingering on Evie the entire way to the door after hearing the soft, almost pleading tone to her voice.  
  
But walking to class very quickly seemed a bit of a pipe dream when Mal opened the bedroom door and found their way blocked with a wall of color and fragrance. Evie gasped. Mal’s eyes went wide with disbelief. A veritable mountain of flowers were in their way, bouquet after bouquet of roses, carnations, lilies, daisies, and flowers neither girl could even recognize. There was nothing to indicate to or from who, save for a little notecard stuck among the stems of one of the bouquets—blank except for a small doodle of a heart, with a crown on top.  
  
“…For  _me?”_  Evie gasped again, hand covering her mouth.  
  
“Looks like,” Mal stooped over and plucked the notecard from the flowers, holding it out to Evie for emphasis.  
  
“But…who? How??”   
  
Evie was always taught that stammering was unattractive, but she just couldn’t help herself. Mal flipped the card over, examining the blank back of it.  
  
“Doesn’t say. Guess you have a secret admirer,” Mal smirked, then took a second look at the garden parked in front of their door. “Or secret admirers. Plural.”  
  
“Here, help me bring them inside,” Evie set her things down on the floor.  
  
“Might as well, or we’ll never get to class.”  
  
One by one they moved each vase inside the dorm room, finding homes for the bouquets on the desk, by the windowsill, on top of the dresser. The beaming smile Evie had skipped out on after putting together her outfit showed itself now.  
  
“Who could’ve done this?? They’re beautiful!”  
  
“I don’t know, every guy in school, maybe?” Mal laughed. “A list of your secret admirers would be a pretty long list, E.”  
  
There was a bounce in Evie’s step all the way to first period, and Mal was glad to see it. She didn’t like downcast Evie, never did. Her best friend just wasn’t the same without a smile and a glow.  
  
“Oh, hey! I know at least one person who can’t be on your list of flower-givers,” Mal said as they drew to a stop outside Evie’s classroom.  
  
“Really? Who?”  
  
“Sneezy’s son,” Mal said around a teasing grin.  
  
She brought a laugh out of Evie, a real and genuine one.  
  
“Bye, Mal,” she said with a shake of her head. “See you next period.”  
  
“See you,” Mal said her goodbye as well and continued down the hall, off to her own class.  
  
Evie’s mind was still on the other side of campus as she walked into her classroom, still on the soft, sweet-smelling flowers eagerly waiting in her dorm. Evie was eagerly waiting herself, waiting for the day to end so she could rush back to them and admire their majesty of colors, their beauty and perfection. With Evie’s mind still on the other side of campus it took her a second to notice that all eyes turned to her as she stepped into the room, wondering how in the world she was supposed to sit down with a giant pink teddy bear parked comfortably in her chair.  
  
“…What is _that?”_  she blurted incredulously when she finally found her focus.  
  
It was bigger than she was, that’s what it was.  
  
“It was here before any of the rest of us got here,” Jane bounded over with a radiant smile of her own.  
  
It was at Evie’s desk, sure, but it just couldn’t have been for her…could it? The flowers were a miracle enough, but flowers  _and_  an oversized bear just big enough for cuddling? Evie was doubtful, very much so, until she approached her desk and found one of the same notecards, blank except for a hurriedly penciled drawing of her crest.  
  
Color Mal surprised when she went to meet Evie at the end of first period and was instead met with the Evie-sized bear being thrust into her arms.  
  
“Somebody’s popular,” she noted, voice muffled around the cloud of pink fur. Very huggable though, she had to give it that. “Are we gonna lug this around all day or are we making a pit stop in our room?”  
  
Any excuse for Evie to go and have a look at those wonderful, wonderful flowers again. Mal made sure the bear was made nice and cozy on Evie’s bed while Evie trailed her fingers carefully across flower petals and sniffed their delightful fragrances.  
  
“I want to know who’s doing all this for me,” Evie said wistfully, feeling lighter than air.  
  
“You could ask around, I guess,” Mal suggested. “You can’t cart an enormous pink bear around school without  _somebody_ noticing.”  
  
But it didn’t prove to be quite so simple, as Evie’s asking around throughout the morning turned up nothing. No one knew how flowers had appeared outside Mal and Evie’s dorm room early that morning, no one took note of a massive bear being toted from hall to hall on its way to Evie’s classroom. No one could explain why the girls arrived to the VKs’ usual table at lunch to find Jay and Carlos practically drowning under boxes of candy and chocolates.  
  
“We didn’t eat any, I swear!” Carlos held up his hands in innocence as Mal and Evie approached.  
  
“Didn’t eat any…don’t tell me  _this_  is for Evie too??” Mal beat her best friend in finding the third card, Evie’s heart and crown crest again adorning just one side.  
  
A giddy giggle escaped from Evie, she gleefully clapped her hands together as she hurried to take a seat at the table and sift through all the goodies.  
  
“Too? What do you mean ‘too’?” Jay asked.  
  
“Flowers and a teddy bear!” Evie happily told him. “Valentine’s gifts for me!!”  
  
“I’m not surprised,” Jay chuckled.   
  
“…I am,” Evie finally admitted, wearing a shy smile.  
  
Mal looked confused as ever as she took a seat next to Evie. The boys as well.  
  
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Evie shrugged. “I couldn’t find my Prince Charming here in Auradon, there’s no one here to care about me enough to spoil me with gifts on Valentine’s Day.”  
  
“Evie, that’s not true,” Carlos gently said. “You’ve got—”  
  
He cut himself off after a warning glance from Jay. Evie didn’t notice.  
  
“—A ton of guys here who like you, no doubt about it,” Carlos said with a sheepish smile, ducking away from Jay’s glower. “They’re probably just shy, that’s all.”  
  
“Or smart enough to know that you’re way out of their league,” Jay added.  
  
“That’s for sure,” Mal agreed, absentmindedly picking up and eyeing a box of candy.  
  
“But still, I want to know who’s sweet enough to get me all these amazing gifts, I want to thank him,” Evie said.  
  
“Well, it is Valentine’s Day. Maybe someone will confess,” Carlos mused.  
  
Evie’s eyes lit up.  
  
“I wonder who it could be!”  
  
She almost thought she’d stumbled upon a clue come the end of the school day, when she opened up her locker and found another mystery notecard fluttering down to the floor. Evie crouched down to pick it up and have a look. This one didn’t sport her crown and heart symbol, but words. A poem.  
  
 _“Roses are red, a wonderful hue,  
but my favorite color has got to be blue.”_  
  
Not quite a clue, as this wasn’t a handwriting she recognized, but still she felt her cheeks turning warm and pink, a smile stretching across her face. She truly did have a secret admirer.  
  
Evie kept the poem close for the rest of the afternoon, close to her heart. Mal wanted to grimace at the corniness of it all when the poem was read to her, but happily restrained herself upon seeing the imaginary hearts floating over Evie’s head.  
  
“So what happens if I don’t approve of this 'secret admirer’?” Mal teased, sitting at the dorm room desk and attempting to get some homework done amidst a sea of flowers and candy.  
  
Evie was on her bed, curled up close to her bear and very distracted by said imaginary hearts.  
  
“How could you not approve of someone who obviously cares about me so very much?”  
  
“Because it’s the best friend’s job to disapprove,” Mal said simply.  
  
“I guess it is,” Evie laughed. “Or…”   
  
She got up from the bed, padding across the floor to stand behind Mal’s chair.  
  
“…Maybe you’re worried a secret admirer might replace you,” Evie softly said, with a tone meant to drag the truth from Mal.  
  
“Would he?” Mal leaned her head back to glance up at Evie.  
  
“No one will  _ever_  replace you, M,” Evie caught her in a hug, arms around her shoulders. “Now how about we head down to dinner?”  
  
“You go ahead first, I’m almost done,” Mal tapped her pencil to the notebook in front of her.  
  
Evie nodded.  
  
“I’ll see you down there,” she said.  
  
She was admittedly relieved when she got to the dining hall and found that there wasn’t a Round Two of candy boxes waiting at the VKs’ table—Evie honestly wasn’t sure she’d have the room for all of it.  
  
“Still no leads?” Jay asked as Evie sat down with her tray.  
  
“None,” she sighed. “No one’s seen anybody leaving my gifts behind, no one looks exceptionally guilty or suspicious, no one’s come up and blurted 'I like you, Evie!’ Valentine’s Day is almost over, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find out who my secret admirer is.”  
  
“That’s kinda the whole point of the 'secret’ part, though,” Carlos laughed.  
  
Evie supposed it was, but still, she badly wanted to know, the curiosity had been eating away at her all day.  
  
“Where’s Mal?” Jay suddenly noticed her absence had dragged on for an unusually long time a little while later.  
  
Evie realized it too, how Mal  _was_ taking a long time to get down to the dining hall.  
  
“She was supposed to be finishing her homework, but—”  
  
Evie’s explanation was cut off by the out of place but distinct rolling and rattling of wheels. Heads swiveled and eyes searched from all across the dining hall, following the path of an elegant silver dining cart being easily pushed through the room by one of the kitchen chefs. Evie’s breath caught the instant she realized the cart was being rolled closer and closer to her. This couldn’t be for her too, no way. Surely the chef was about to swerve, or turn, veer away from her somehow.  
  
Not come to a stop right beside her chair, with the chef handing her a large heart shaped box from the cart.  
  
“Bon appétit, Madam Evie,” was all he said, bowing to her before continuing on his way and rolling the cart back towards the kitchen.  
  
She could tell that every conversation in the room was suddenly about her just then, whispers and giddy laughs and curious words of what that had been all about, but all she could hear was her own heart beating in her ears.  
  
“Your secret admirer has a flair for dramatics,” Carlos pointed out.  
  
“Open it up!” Jay insisted, hoping that if more candy was the order of business Evie might deny being able to eat it all and offer to share.  
  
The box was bound with a thin red ribbon, which Evie slowly untied and set off to the side. She took the lid off the box and found not chocolate, or candy, but a treat just as delicious.  
  
“Chocolate covered strawberries!” she smiled, finding herself already anticipating and savoring the taste.  
  
What a day. What a wonderful, incredible day. This exact time last night had her caught in teary and miserable blues, and now here she was today, walking on air. Sheer magic.  
  
“Why is one missing?” Carlos questioned, pointing his fork to where one of the strawberry-shaped molds in the carton sat empty.  
  
“Looks like someone got to it before you did,” Jay said.  
  
The smirk on Jay’s face. The odd, barely-contained grin on Carlos’. A missing strawberry.  
  
Oh, those were hints if Evie ever knew them.  
  
She thought she quickly uttered some form of “goodbye” or “be right back” as she put the lid back in place on the box and bolted from the table, but she wasn’t entirely sure. She didn’t stop to make sure. She didn’t stop until she’d made it all the way back to the dorm, throwing the door open and racing inside. There was Mal, sitting cross-legged on Evie’s bed, lounging comfortably next to the bear and seeming to have been watching the door like she was just waiting for Evie to come running. Amazing how she could look both proud like she’d just pulled off a wicked scheme and guilty like she was an Auradon child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  
  
“…Happy Valentine’s Day, Evie,” she said, sounding ever so shy.  
  
“…You?” was the only word Evie could manage, a little breathless from zooming through the halls and a little breathless from…well, in general.  
  
“Me,” Mal said back.  
  
“You left the flowers? And the bear?? And the candy and chocolate and the poem and—”  
  
“And the tiara.”  
  
“And the t—…wait, what tiara?”  
  
The little tiara headband sitting daintily atop the teddy bear’s head, which Evie didn’t notice until Mal’s fingers nimbly plucked it from the bear before she stood up from the bed.  
  
“Fit for a princess,” Mal softly said, slowly crossing the room to Evie.  
  
“…Mal, you really did all this for me?” Evie couldn’t believe it. She felt her eyes sting, threatening to water.  
  
“Today was the best day to do it…to tell you that I like you, Evie. I know you’re my best friend, but I really,  _really_  like you. You’re  _amazing_ , and sweet, and beautiful, and you’ve always been there for me whenever I needed you. I just…I wanted to show you how much that means to me. How much I care about you and hope that…you might care about me too.”  
  
Evie sniffed, and rubbed her watery eyes. Mal’s nervous smile faltered, a fretful expression taking over her features.  
  
"Is this a good kind of cry or a bad kind of cry?” she worried.  
  
But then Evie laughed a tinkling, teary laugh, and the room went silent with her lips pressed close to Mal’s in an elated and thankful first kiss.  
  
“A wonderful kind of cry,” Evie told her.  
  
Mal’s cheeks went bright red, her eyes wide with the fact that her best friend, her crush, the most beautiful girl at Auradon Prep, had just kissed her. It took her a minute or two to get her senses back, to snap herself out of it, but eventually she was reaching up to place the tiara on Evie’s head, among the waves of blue. Before she could, Evie curled a hand around her arm, stopping her.  
  
“You didn’t steal this, did you?” she was really only half teasing.  
  
Mal shook her head.  
  
“…The only thing I stole today was your heart,” a look of blind panic washed over Mal’s features. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just—that was terrible. That was so cheesy, please pretend I didn’t just say that.”  
  
Evie would do no such thing, eyes full of stars and hearts. A second soft kiss shut up Mal’s embarrassed ramblings, and with a relieved smile, and a bit of a starstruck sigh, she slipped the tiara in place. Fit for a princess indeed. Her princess.  
  
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Evie,” Mal said once more.  
  
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mal.”  
  
This was only the beginning, Evie could feel it. Her heart fluttered excitedly in her chest, like all along it had been waiting for her to wake up and see Mal as something more. Mother had been wrong. Evie had been wrong too. She didn’t need a Prince Charming, and she didn’t need a boyfriend. She needed Mal. The best friend who in the course of just one day cleared her blues and made her feel wanted, and cared for, and adored, and beautiful. Yes, it was only the start for the two of them, standing there lost in a hug and a swell of big smiles. There would be so much more to come, Evie knew this. She felt this in her heart.  
  
Today, she said  _“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mal”._  But the words doubled as a promise in her ears, a promise that one year—and hopefully one year soon—they’d become  _“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mal…I love you.”_  
  
Evie absolutely couldn’t wait. 


End file.
